Presidents' Climate Commitment Gets Boost from The Honorable Bill Clinton at GreenBuild

In a keynote speech shown live via streaming video on the Internet, president Clinton discussed a number of his foundation's efforts to support a greener America and world, and specifically noted the William J. Clinton Foundation's support for the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, recognizing among others SCUPer Tony Cortese of Second Nature, co-founder of SCUP's Campus Sustainability Day. Here is what we currently know about the . . .

partnership between the ACUPCC and the Clinton Foundation (Clinton Climate Initiative) on private funding for energy efficiency building retrofits for colleges and universities. Over the next year, we’ll work alongside the CCI as well as the leaders at NACUBO, APPA, NAEP and SCUP to take these best practice RFPs and contracts and turn them into turnkey models that any school in the country could use, regardless of their institutional expertise.

This group will also collaborate with the CCI’s financial and energy services partners to develop innovative ways to lower project costs and potentially extend the scope of greenhouse gas-reducing projects into new areas beyond building retrofits. This is potentially the biggest step forward in rapid progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings as well as helping to deal with deferred maintenance – a huge issue on campuses.

Clinton had, on the stage with him, representatives of several colleges and universities which he said "house more than 250,000 students." More details of that support as they are available. Among other things, Clinton noted that "When America is in the business of solutions, there is nobody better" and noted that if the US has signed the Kyoto Accord, there would likely have been economic benefits that we are already missing in our economy. He shared with the GreenBuild audience that he expected that in 18 months to 5 years the focus of planners, designer, and architects will shift from "energy neutral" to "energy positive" buildings.

We expect the video of Clinton's address to be archived on the GreenBuild365 website, which also features additional live webcasts as the event continues for the rest of this week.